


October 19: “Oh please, like this is the worst I have done.”

by Qophia



Series: Qoph's Fictober 2018 [19]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ficlet, Fictober, Gen, Solas Being Solas, cadash's apple's mysterious origins revealed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 17:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16351232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qophia/pseuds/Qophia
Summary: “You thieving little—!” The Herald was stepping back from an apple cart, palms out in a placating gesture.





	October 19: “Oh please, like this is the worst I have done.”

“You thieving little—!”

The exclamation startled Solas out of his perusal of the dwarven merchant’s disappointingly scant but curiously eclectic offering of books, drawing his attention a few yards down the row.

The Herald was stepping back from an apple cart, palms out in a placating gesture. “Hey now, friend, let’s not jump to assumptions.” Solas began casually drifting in his direction as though moving on to the next stall.

“What assumptions! I saw you! I had you pegged from the moment you walked up—no self-respecting grit-sucker wears one of those flashy tattoos. And don’t think I missed your clumsy attempts at misdirection, either.” The human man staffing the cart worked his mouth and spat at the Herald’s feet. “I know where to keep my eyes when one of you people walks up. Fucking Carta.”

“Look,” the Herald said, “I don’t want any trouble. How about we make a deal—I pay you for what you think I took, and you don’t call the guard.”

The man’s nostrils flared as he pursed his lips in a sneer, looking Edric Cadash up and down. “Fine. Fifteen silver.”

“Fifteen s—!” The Herald cut himself off, glanced around, and stepped in close to the vendor. “Fifteen silver?” he repeated, slightly quieter. “ _Seriously?_ Where, exactly,” he asked, holding out his arms and gesturing at his coat, “do you think I’m hiding a _whole_ _‘nother cart’s worth_ of your apples?”

The man crossed his arms. “ _Twenty_ silver,” he countered.

“Fine!” The Herald threw up his hands. “You know what? _Fine._ ” He dug into a pouch on his belt, fished out a coin purse, and counted the twenty coins into the man’s smugly upturned palm. “Are we done here?”

“Yes,” the man said, inspecting one of the coins with an air of performative suspicion, “I think it’s time you left.”

Cadash turned as if to go, then paused, a hand hovering over the apples. “Since I already paid you for the lot, I don’t suppose I could take—”

“No! Get out of here before I change my mind and have you thrown out.”

The Herald snatched his hand back from the cart. “ _Fine._ I’m going, I’m going.” Looking up, he caught Solas’s gaze and subtly twitched his head back toward the gate to the village. Solas took a moment to idly eye a few more vendors as he walked back out of the small market, then made his own way to the entrance, where Cadash was waiting for him just outside the portcullis. Eating...

Ah. Eating an apple. Solas sighed. “I suppose you will attempt to convince me that you only performed the theft _after_ the man had falsely accused you.”

The Herald snorted. “I think you’re a prig, Chuckles, not stupid. Here,” he said, tossing a second apple to the mage.

Solas caught it one-handed and looked at it distastefully. “Surely even you could not truly believe that stealing produce from desperate farmers in a time of strife and instability and using the Inquisition’s coffers to cover your missteps is an appropriate use of your time, skills, and resources.”

“Oh please,” the Herald laughed, “like that would be the worst thing I’ve done.”

Solas looked up from the apple in his hand, frown twisting deeper.

“Ach,” Cadash said, “you’re no fun when you’re like this. Just eat the damn apple—we’ve got a bit of a hike to the camp, and I want to drop these papers off with Bull before I come back to scope out that tavern Dorian’s supposed to show up at.”

“I do not see why I should eat—.” He paused. “Papers?”

The Herald heaved a melodramatic sigh. “See, Chuckles, this is why we don’t get along. Thinking I’d be petty enough to boost some fruit from a guy who needs the coin is bad enough. But believing I’d be _careless_ enough to get caught doing it? That’s just _mean_.”

Solas’s eyes unfocused for a moment as he reconsidered what he’d seen. “The man was a spy. Venatori?”

“Obviously.”

“And the 'misdirection' he noticed was in fact intended to aim his attention at the true misdirection of the theft of the apples, such that you would be free to obtain that which had actually caught your interest.”

“And the payoff was so he’d be smug enough about besting the nasty Carta dwarf not to think about the whole thing too hard, yeah. Happy? Will you eat the damn apple now?”

Solas looked down at the fruit still in his hand and blinked as though surprised to find it there. “I suppose. You did pay for it, after all.” His lip twitched toward a faint smile. “It would be a shame to let it go to waste.”

As they began their walk back to camp, Solas took a bite of the apple, and as he enjoyed a taste both familiar and strange, he considered once more that perhaps there was more to the Herald than he had been willing to credit.

**Author's Note:**

> fyi cadash walked out of that market with _at least_ a half-dozen apples; the merchant only saw him grab three


End file.
